The American will become the first person who identifies as biracial to join the upper echelons of the U.K.’s royal family when she marries Harry in May.

But some black women said coverage of the Los Angeles native’s roots by some media outlets is indicative of the underlying racism that they experience daily.

“I feel like racism in the U.K. is pretty insidious,”

said Paula Akpan, a co-founder of Black Girl Festival which celebrates black British women.

Read the full story. Quiet and overt racism against black women in Europe is a problem which is why our work is so important. Help us build the most comprehensive directory of organizations in the UK and across Europe that support black women. Submit the names to contact@bwiesmg.org today.

The Black Women in Europe™ Social Media Group held its 2017 Annual General Meeting yesterday. Board members in Copenhagen, Denmark, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Sweden and New York, USA met via Skype and telephone.

Of the 8 members of the Board, one was in Stockholm protesting the slavery of African immigrants in Libya and another was being interviewed by German state television and were unable to attend.

Of the 10 agenda items discussed this change to our Statutes is of direct interest to society:

7) RULES FOR MEMBERSHIP AND EXCLUSION

All persons who completely accept and support the statutes of our association are welcome to become members of the Black Women in Europe™ Social Media Group.

Scholarships can only be awarded to Members who are black women living in Europe. For these purposes, a black woman is defined as having direct African descent.

Membership fees and donations will be used to cover the costs of executing and maintaining the three pillars of the organization.

Voting results: 8 AyeBoard members unable to attend the full meeting were offered a Proxy to submit their vote. 3 votes were submitted by Proxy.

Her work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Travel + Leisure, Slate, Travel Channel, Lonely Planet, Fodor’s, National Geographic Channel, several in-flight magazines, amongst others. She was in South Africa on a photography assignment for National Geographic Channel and was featured in a vignette called “Through The Lens” which airs on Nat Geo channel across the globe.

She also owns and runs Geotraveler Media – a multimedia and travel consulting firm providing a spectrum of travel media-related services from writing and photography to web design and social media. She is editor-in-chief of Slow Travel Stockholm – an editorial site which encourages travelers to explore Stockholm deeper and slowly.

She is also a founding member of the Nordic Travel Bloggers (NordicTB) collective which brings together the top professional travel influencers and digital storytellers in the Nordic countries of Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland.

Board Member

Kathy Thompson is a former classical, neo-contemporary and modern professional dancer. Amsterdam (Scapino). She performed with the Basel Ballet, Switzerland, Cie Nomads, Vevey, Switzerland, Phillip Trehét, LeHarv, France, Pretty Ugly, Freiburg, Germany, and Dortmund Stadtheater, Germany.

Board Member

A native of Gambia, Daphne Norman-Sandberg has called Sweden home since she was two years old.

After earning a Business Administration degree from the University of Gothenburg Daphne spent 24 years as a Social Worker and Human Resources Champion fighting to prevent sexual violence against women and children. She was an advisor to the Swedish Delegation to the UN Commission for the Elimination of Discrimination Again Women in 2010.

She is the proud mother of 3, grandmother of 1 and foster mother to over 40 children from various backgrounds. Somehow, she has found the time to fuel her love of travel. In addition to her monthly trips to the UK to visit the Gambian community, her travels have included visits to Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Poland, Iceland and all 3 Baltic States.

Vice Chair

photo credit Bente Jæger

Lesley-Ann Brown is a Trinidadian-American author, freelance journalist, activist and poet. Her recent work examines methods of decolonial narratives fused with political activism. She´s one of the co-founders of Say It Loud, a spoken-word-poetry collective, consisting of Black women poets in Copenhagen, Denmark. Say It Loud is now the R.A.M. Poetry collective (Random Access Memory). Brown has been featured and invited to participate in a range of events, including BE.BOP 2016 Black Europe Body Politics, in Berlin and Copenhagen, and she was one of the panelists in and organizers for the first ever Women of Color Panel in Denmark .

Brown attended the New School for Social Research’s Eugene Lang College where she studied Writing & Literature. She later went on to work in New York publishing while freelancing for various magazines. Her move to Copenhagen, Denmark in 1999 inspired her to create the blog www.blackgirlonmars.com – which she has since retired. She´s currently working on a memoir entitled ‘Decolonial Daughter’, to be published in the UK in Spring, 2018 by Repeater Books.

Board Member & Treasurer

Photo credit A.G.

Jonas Lind is a career Military Officer with over 35 years of service to Sweden. During his career he has moved from the Platoon, Company, Brigade and Joint Staff levels on Gotland, Halmstad, Stockholm, and England. He has been a popular instructor, mentor, and lecturer and is an avid reader and visitor of historic sights.

He brings his unique Swedish perspective, level-headedness, and talent for forward thinking to our Board.